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Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince al-Walid bin Talal bin Abd al-Aziz, detained in the Kingdom's sweeping crackdown on corruption, said on Saturday that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing and released from custody within days, with his vast assets intact.

During the 1990's a younger generation of Saudi religious shaykhs rose to prominence on a wave of anti-Western rhetoric and criticism of Saudi government policies. A government crackdown in 1994 put some of the most prominent members of the Awakening movement in prison for the rest of the decade. Since their release, most have lost their positions within the Saudi religious-educational bureaucracy, but many have been able to resume a public, if more subdued role within the religious community.